First 5,000 COVID-19 vaccines could reach Palestinians ‘this weekend’

Palestinian men inspect a damaged house near the border fence with Israel in Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza on January 20, 2021. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/APA Images)

The Latest:

  • 173,964 Palestinians tested positive for COVID-19; 161,954 recoveries; 1,937 deaths
  • Of those who tested positive, 105,370 live in the West Bank; 49,187 live in Gaza; and 19,407 live in East Jerusalem
  • 589,028 Israelis tested positive for COVID-19; 504,820 recoveries; 4,266 deaths; 2.8 million received first vaccine dose

Palestinians are expected to receive the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccines as early as this weekend, albeit a much smaller shipment than first anticipated.

Speaking to Reuters on Tuesday, the Palestinian ambassador to Russia Abdel Hafiz Nofal said 5,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V would enter the West Bank “by the end of the week.” The Palestinian Authority provided emergency authorization of the vaccine on Jan. 11, and also announced a deal with Oxford’s AstraZeneca for 2 million doses for 1 million people, at $10 million, according to a statement by Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

“We are working to seal an agreement with the Russian government to buy 100,000 doses, which are enough to vaccinate 50,000 people,” Nofal told Reuters. He added, there are two hold ups: a paucity of available vaccines for purchase, and the PA is negotiating the price.

On Thursday Israel confirmed it has approved a request of 5,000 doses earmarked for healthcare workers in the West Bank and Gaza. The Jerusalem Post reported the vaccines would enter from Jordan via the Allenby crossing, however, no request had been made from the PA to transfer vaccines from the West Bank into Gaza.

Adding it all up: The total amount of Sputnik V vaccines that were procured and when the remaining vaccines will arrive remains unclear. The AstraZeneca shipment is now expected in March.

The fine print: Sputnik V requires cold-chain transfer at a temperature of 35.6 to 46.4°F, with a reported efficacy of 91.4%. Like AstraZeneca, it can more easily be transported at normal refrigeration temperatures. Preliminary trials for AstraZeneca suggest a lower efficacy, currently hovering at 70.4%, which is a sizable difference from Pfizer and Moderna’s 95% efficacy. Pfizer and Moderna pose additional challenges in transport as they must be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius.

Israel has already given the first jab of the Pfizer vaccine to 2.8 million, and expects to vaccinate the entire population by March. We’ve covered the contrast between access to vaccines between Israelis and Palestinians in the past. This week we noticed Israel is getting early data about COVID-19 spread among those who received the first dose. The BBC said a study by the Israeli healthcare provider Clalit found only 33% fewer infections among those who received the first dose. 

Separately, this week the WHO announced the PA had submitted a bid to receive the first round of Pfizer vaccines distributed by UNICEF through the Gavi Alliance/COVAX program. The global health alliance will cover the cost and distribution of vaccines for 20% of the Palestinians. This “first wave” would cover 0.25% of the population and would be administered to frontline workers. 

In recent weeks Palestinian officials have claimed the pending arrival of anywhere from a few thousand doses, to up to three million. Those figures are smaller than the four million that was promised “by the end of the year or the start of 2021” by a senior health official in December.

Positivity rate down by half

For a fourth week in a row the number of new cases in the West Bank and Gaza have decreased, however, we’ve noted in this newsletter that the United Nations has warned that low testing was likely concealing a wider outbreak. As such, we’ve turned to the positivity rate as a more revealing data point, which weeks ago was one of the highest in the world. This week, in the WHO’s latest situation report we learned that the positivity rate has dropped by around half, down to 16%. 

The highest share of current cases continues to be found in Gaza, now home to 54% of active infections. Testing is down from close to 3,000 per day to 1,850 in the last week. We’ve warned a few times in this newsletter that Gaza was due to run out of tests again this weekend, however, imported lab materials arrived this week. Gaza currently has enough tests for three more weeks at current rates. 

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